Saturday, March 4, 2023

Once a Day - Connie Smith

Once a Day - Connie Smith
2:20
Connie Smith, 1965
Written by Bill Anderson

I've only vaguely heard of Smith and I don't think I've ever heard this song.  Of course, it was #1 for eight weeks, and propelled Smith to superstardom, but to be fair to me, I was not much interested in country for many decades of my life.  This is an archetypical "woe is me" song sung with pride and defiance, hanging on the hook of the type of ironic wordplay country music used to love.  That is, "The only time I wish you weren't gone / Is once a day, every day, all day long."  I like the example in Willie Nelson's "Three Days:"  "Three days that I dread to see arrive / Three days I hate to be alive / Three days filled with tears and sorrow / Yesterday, today, and tomorrow."  Or, as Kurt Vonnegut said, "Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future."  But I digress.  This is a deserved classic.

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